Cancer, The Crab: A powerful custom-made Magic the Gathering Card

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If you don’t know what Magic the Gathering is, it’s a trading card game with its own lore and story behind the cards themselves. These cards are categorized into five colors, which are white, black, blue, red, and green (there’s also colorless which is pretty much grey). The cards in these games all have a picture of some kind of creature, enchantment, artifact, instant and sorcery (magic and spells), and land (which are represent different environments). Each of these cards has a certain amount of “hit points” (HP) and can perform a variety of functions, depending upon how it is used. There’s different ways to play with these cards and build decks with them but the most common format is a regular deck that consists of at least 60 cards. You can only have a maximum of four of the same exact card in a deck, except cards that are basic land because their is no limit to how many of those you can have. The way you win the game is you play your cards against your opponents and try to lower their “hit points.” There are many strategies to use to win the game, but basically you have to lower opponent’s (or opponents’ — games have been known to have up to 20 players) “hit points” to zero. Everyone starts with 20 HP and then your points go up or down depending on how well you play your cards.

So, let’s talk about the cards. People create their own cards all of the time, within certain parameters of the game — you can’t create a card that will always win and win you the game. As an avid Magic the Gathering player, like most players, I buy card decks that other people have created and learn how to play these cards. I will trade cards with my friends to build up decks of cards that I can use when I play….so I just grab a deck to play instead of spending hours figuring out what to use for one game. I learn how to use these decks of cards well and compete against other decks. Once you have enough experience, that is when you start creating your own cards. I am now at a level where I am creating my own custom cards.

Cancer, the king of crabs is my third custom made Magic the Gathering card that is a legendary creature based off of the Zodiac Spirit Cancer, the crab. The play style of this card is to build up an army of crabs that will overwhelm your opponent. If you build up a strong enough army of crabs, your opponent (opponents) cannot withstand their attack and will much more quickly run out of Hit Points, and so they die and the lose the game. Good cards that would go well with Cancer would be cards that will give you blue mana, more crabs, and counters/ removal. Cards that would go well with Cancer would be

Horseshoe Crab (3 per deck with Cancer)

Helps Cancer create more crabs and at the same time it can be used to block an opponent’s attack, so it makes you harder to kill

Ancient Crab (4 per deck with Cancer)

Helps Cancer make more crabs while also being a crab

Hedron Crab 4

Helps Cancer make more crabs and gets rid of your opponent’s cards by making them discard the top of their decks

Vexing Scuttler (3 per deck with Cancer)

Helps Cancer make more crabs and put some cards already used back to your hand

King Crab (3 per deck with Cancer)

Helps Cancer make more crabs and have more control over the field by removing certain creatures from the field

Counterspell (3 per deck with Cancer)

Helps Cancer by removing what can be played by the other player(s)

Rewind (3 per deck with Cancer)

Helps Cancer by removing what can be played by the other player(s) while also being able to play other cards

Astral Cornucopia 2

Helps Cancer by being able to have more mana (like having more land, which is needed to place cards on so they can be actively used)

Coldsteel Heart (3 per deck with Cancer)

Helps Cancer by doing the same thing as Astral Cornucopia 2 (see above)

Sky Diamond (2 per deck with Cancer)

Helps Cancer by doing the same thing as Astral Cornucopia 2 (see above)

Syncopate (4 per deck with Cancer)

Helps Cancer by removing what can be played by the other player(s)

The play style of these cards is to have a good early defense, to make your defense harder to break down, so you have control over the field. If played correctly, these cards will help you to overwhelm your opponent’s army in the late game stages with your army of crabs. The creatures in this deck synergize very well with Cancer since they are all crabs and are great at defending.